Israeli Strikes in Lebanon Kill 9, Health Officials Say

A pair of Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in southern Lebanon early Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said, one of the deadliest attacks in the country since a fragile truce took effect nearly two months ago. A strike overnight in Ansar, near the city of Nabatieh, killed seven people, including three children, and wounded two others, health ministry officials said. Hours later, Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike on Deir al-Zahrani, killing at least two and wounding nine others, according to the ministry. The Israeli military said in a statement that its attacks in the Ansar area had targeted infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reports of civilian deaths or on the attack later on Saturday morning. The Israeli military said the strikes followed Hezbollah activity in the Ali al-Taher ridge , a strategic hilltop about six miles from the Israeli border that has emerged as a focal point of the conflict in recent months. Nawaf Salam, Lebanon’s prime minister, called the escalation on Saturday “extremely dangerous,” and said it undermined efforts to establish stability in the country’s south. “The seven martyrs in the Israeli strike on Ansar town were not ‘military infrastructure,’ and the children and women killed were not military targets,” Mr. Nawaf said in a statement on social media . We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .